DAWSON COULD RETURN

Nick Daws could welcome back captain Stephen Dawson after he missed the 2-2 draw with Shrewsbury Town last week.

The former Barnsley and Rochdale midfielder had been involved in every fixture since Boxing Day (a total of 14 games) on his return from a knee injury.

Speaking in his pre-Chesterfield press conference, the Scunthorpe boss told The Iron PlayerHD: “Stephen is back in full training.

“He’s done a little bit of conditioning work offloaded on Tuesday. He is set to be back in full training on Thursday, which will be a big positive for us because he is the captain and an integral part of the squad.

“We are looking forward to having him back.”

Sean McAllister is set to miss out after taking a knock on his ankle in training, a recurrence of the injury setback he suffered a month ago, while Scott Wiseman remains the only long-term absentee after it was confirmed on Tuesday he would undergo surgery to remove a bone growth.

“Sean McAllister picked up a knock in training on Tuesday, which is unfortunate for him,” he continued.

“That may rule him out of training towards the end of the week, but we will assess him.

“Scott (Wiseman) is having an operation to remove a bone growth, which is a standard procedure. Because of the invasiveness of the surgery, it will probably rule him out for the rest of the season; depending on how long our season lasts.

“Apart from that, we’ve had a little bit of illness with Dominic Vose missing out on Monday, but he was back in on Tuesday. With the exception of those players, we have a clean bill of health going into this one.”

Elsewhere, the Iron welcomed back Luke Williams last weekend, with the attacking midfielder making a favourable impression from the bench which saw him provide an assist and United come back from 1-0 down at Shrewsbury.

Daws confirmed he came through the thirty-minute spell unscathed and has had another successful week of training in a bid to step up his game time going into the final ten fixtures of the season.

“Luke came through the game (against Shrewsbury) fine,” Daws stated.

“The half an hour he got was always the plan, to ease him back in. With a full week’s training, it now puts him in a starting position to be able to play at the weekend if we decide that’s the way to go.

“If he doesn’t and he comes on from the bench, we know what a good impact player he will be for us.”

See much more from Nick Daws, Luke Williams and Murray Wallace on The Iron PlayerHD ahead of the game.